The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum
March 29, 2024, 10:14:40 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: Here you may discover hundreds of little-known composers, hear thousands of long-forgotten compositions, contribute your own rare recordings, and discuss the Arts, Literature and Linguistics in an erudite and decorous atmosphere full of freedom and delight.
 
  Home Help Search Gallery Staff List Login Register  

Mr. Bowyer and his noble intentions in re Sorabji

Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Mr. Bowyer and his noble intentions in re Sorabji  (Read 6030 times)
0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.
guest54
Guest
« Reply #15 on: May 18, 2012, 12:12:42 pm »

Well! It is gratifying to find in the end that the organ sound is not too murky; and what is most striking is that the style is not at all like that of the pianoforte pieces - there are far fewer notes, far fewer filigrees, and the sound of the organ is in every way grander and more splendacious. It is in fact the most imposing organ production I have heard.

But all this is very much a "first impression," and my first wish is simply to find out where Part I leaves off and Part II begins! It was easy to find the END of Part II, because there is applause, and an announcement. (That comes after 5 hours and 49 minutes.) But how long is Part I? After 4 hours and 8 minutes there is a Grand Stop, followed by a few seconds' silence - is this the end of Part I, or is it shorter? It probably is (shorter), and I have missed the spot where it leaves off. Help!
Report Spam   Logged
ahinton
Level 6
******

Times thanked: 30
Offline Offline

Posts: 837


View Profile WWW
« Reply #16 on: May 18, 2012, 01:39:39 pm »

Well! It is gratifying to find in the end that the organ sound is not too murky; and what is most striking is that the style is not at all like that of the pianoforte pieces - there are far fewer notes, far fewer filigrees, and the sound of the organ is in every way grander and more splendacious. It is in fact the most imposing organ production I have heard.

But all this is very much a "first impression," and my first wish is simply to find out where Part I leaves off and Part II begins! It was easy to find the END of Part II, because there is applause, and an announcement. (That comes after 5 hours and 49 minutes.) But how long is Part I? After 4 hours and 8 minutes there is a Grand Stop, followed by a few seconds' silence - is this the end of Part I, or is it shorter? It probably is (shorter), and I have missed the spot where it leaves off. Help!
I think that I would be correct in saying that, for the purpose of this particular broadcast exercise, "Part I" represents the symphony's first two movements in toto and the fact that the performance of the first movement comes in at c. 80 minutes and that of the second at around 4½ hours broadly accords to your mention of "5 hours 49 minutes"; in that case, "Part II" represents the work's third and final movement, comprising a prelude, an adagio, a toccata and a triple fugue leading to a coda-stretta, whose total duration is around 3 hours 20 minutes. The middle movement, incidentally - a massively long, slow theme with 50 variations - ends as it began with an almost note-for-note restatement of that theme except that its final chord is repeated twice at the very end; this comes as a most extraordinary moment in the work, given that it follows a kind of climb-down from an impossible and impossibly trenchant climax as the final variation reaches it close with music that seems to be straining, but failing, to attain resolution in C major and one is returned, full circle as it were, to the music of the opening of the movement which one has not heard in that guise for almost 4½ hours.

You are right to note that this music sounds very little like Sorabji's piano music although, it has to be said, that something of a transformation in the composer's expectations of the organ and the organist took place during the course of this symphony's composition which, it should be remembered, was interrupted for quite some time in order that he could write what was then his most ambitious and demanding piano work to date, Opus Clavicembalisticum (and, given that making sketches was something the Sorabji hardly ever did, I am utterly at a loss to magine how he managed to hold the remainder of the symphony in the back of his head during so long and productive and interruption - he'd got to one of the early variations in the second movement at the time he laid the score aside to concentrate on the piano work).
Report Spam   Logged
guest54
Guest
« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2012, 02:04:58 pm »

. . . the fact that the performance of the first movement comes in at c. 80 minutes . . .

Got it! - thank you - eighty minutes precisely.
Report Spam   Logged

Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy